Famous Wisconsinites

Famous Wisconsinites

Selected Famous Natives and Residents (alive and dead)

Famous Wisconsinites

Selected Famous Natives and Residents (alive and dead)

Alfred Lunt

Alfred Lunt - Stage director and actor; born Alfred Davis Lunt, Jr. on August 12, 1892 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Lunt had a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne, and is considered one of the leading male Broadway stars of the 20th century.

Lunt was born in Milwaukee but after his father, Alfred D. Lunt, died in 1893, his mother remarried a Finnish-born physician, Dr. Karl Sederholm, and had another son and two daughters. The Sederholms eventually moved to Genesee Depot, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
Lunt later attended Carroll College in nearby Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Lunt and his wife, Lynn Fontanne, whom he married on May 26, 1922, in New York City, were the pre-eminent Broadway acting couple. They appeared together in more than twenty plays and were featured, posthumously, on an American postage stamp.
In 1938, Lunt appeared in Chekhov's The Seagull (in which Lunt played Trigorin, Lynn Fontanne played Arkadina, and fellow Wisconsinite, Uta Hagen made her Broadway debut in the role of Nina at the age of 18.)

Lunt received two Tony Awards, an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for 1931's The Guardsman and an Emmy Award for the Hallmark Hall of Fame's production of The Magnificent Yankee.

Awards and nominations include:

1931 Academy Award Nomination, Best Actor, The Guardsman

1954 Tony Award, Best Direction, "Ondine"

1955 Tony Award, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play, "Quadrille"

1964 Lunt and Fontanne were presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson.

Lunt and Fontanne are original members of the American Theater Hall of Fame which was founded in 1972.

The Famous Couple's Wisconsin Home was called Ten Chimneys.

During their careers, Lunt and Fontanne retreated to Ten Chimneys every summer for personal and artistic rejuvenation. A host of stage and screen luminaries made pilgrimages to Genesee Depot as guests of the Lunts, including Noël Coward, Helen Hayes,
Laurence Olivier, and Vivien Leigh. Carol Channing said, "If you get to go to Ten Chimneys, you must have done something right."

Upon retirement, the Lunts returned to Ten Chimneys and spent the rest of their lives at their beloved home in Genesee Depot.

Above: 1950 photo of Alfred Lunt with his actress wife, Lynn Fontanne, whom he married on May 26, 1922. The couple were the pre-eminent Broadway acting couple of American history.

Above: Lunt-Fontanne Theater located at 205 West 46th Street in midtown Manhattan. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons - Elisa Rolle. Originally called the Globe Theater, it was rechristened as the Lunt-Fontanne in honor of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and reopened on May 5, 1958 with Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit, starring the distinguished theatrical couple.

Above: Ten Chimneys was the home of Broadway actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. The property is located in Genesee Depot in the Town of Genesee in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Photo licensed under the Creative Commons - James Steakley.